lübeck to berlin.
By right of churches full of relics, antique buildings, and places curiously named, Lübeck is, no doubt, a jewel of a town to antiquarians. Its streets are badly paved, but infinitely cleaner than the streets of Hamburg. I did not much wonder at that, for I saw no people out of doors to make them dirty, when I exposed myself to notice from within doors as a solitary pedestrian, upon my way to take a letter to a goldsmith in the market place. The market place is a kind of exchange; a square building with an open court in the centre, around which there is a covered way roofed quaintly with carved timbers. In this building the mechanical trades of Lübeck are collected, each trade occupying a space exclusively its own under the colonnade. Here, all the tradesmen are compelled to work, but are not permitted to reside. Each master has his tiny shop-front with a trifling show of goods exposed in it, and his small workshop behind, in which, at most, two or three men can be employed. In some odd little nooks the doors of these boxes are so arranged, that two masters cannot go out of adjoining premises at the same time without collision.
Though my friend in Lübeck was a stranger, as a brother jeweller he gave me friendly welcome. Having inquired into my resources, he said, “You must take theviaticum.”—“It is like begging,” I answered.—“Nonsense,” he replied; “you pay for it when you are in work, and have a right to it when travelling.”—“But I might find employment, on inquiry.”—“Do not be alarmed, my friend; there is not a job to be done in the whole city.” I was forced, therefore, by my friend’s good-natured earnestness, to make the usual demand throughout the little group of goldsmiths, and having thus satisfied the form, I was conducted to our Guild alderman and treasurer. A little quiet conversation passed between them, and the cash-box was then emptied out into my hand;it contained twenty-eight Hamburg shillings, equal to two shillings in English money.
I returned to my hotel and slept in a good bed that night. The morning broke heavily, and promised a day’s rain. Through the lowering weather and the dismal streets I went to the police office to get my passportvisédfor Schwerin in Mecklenburg. Most dismal streets! The Lübeckers were complaining of loss of trade, and yearned for a railway from Lübeck to Hamburg. But the line would run through a corner of Holstein, and no such thing would be tolerated by the Duke. The Lübeckers wanted the Russian traffic to come through their town and on to Hamburg by rail. The Duke of Holstein wished to bring it through his little port of Kiel upon the Baltic.
Too poor to loiter on the road, having got my passportviséd, I again strapped the knapsack to my back, and set out through the long avenues of trees over the long, wet road, through bitter wind and driving rain. Soaked with rain, and shivering with cold, I entered the village of Schöneberg at two o’clock, just after the rain had ceased, as deplorable a figure as a man commonly presents when all the vigour has been washed out of his face, and his clothes hang limp and damp about his body. Wearied to death, I halted at the door of an inn, but was told inhospitably—miserable tramp as I seemed, and was—that “I could go to the next house.” At the next house they again refused me, already humbled, and advised me to go to The Tall Grenadier. That is a house of call for masons. I went to it, and was received there hospitably. My knapsack being waterproof, I could put on dry clothes, and hang my wet garments round the stove, while the uproarious masons—terrible men for beer and music—comforted me with unending joviality. They got into their hands a book of German songs that dropped out of my knapsack, and having appointed a reader, set him upon the table to declaim them. Presently, another jolly mason cried out over a drinking song—declaimed among the others in a loud monotonous bawl—“I know that song;” and having hemmed and tuned his voice a little, broke out into music with tremendous power. The example warmed the others; they began to look out songs with choruses, and so continued singing to the praise of wine and beauty out of my book, until they were warned home by the host. I climbed a ladder tomy bedroom, and slept well. The Grenadier was not an expensive hotel, for in the morning when I paid my bill for bed and breakfast, I found that the accommodation cost me fourpence-halfpenny.
Since it is my desire not to fatigue the reader of this uneventful narrative, but simply to illustrate by a few notes drawn from my own experience the life of a German workman on the tramp, I shall now pass over a portion of the road between Hamburg and Berlin in silence. My way lay through Schwerin; from Schöneberg to Schwerin is twenty-six English miles, and we find it a long way. In reckoning distances, the Germans count by “stunden”—i.e.hours—and two “stunden” make one German mile. From experience, I should say that five miles English were about equal to one mile German; but they vary considerably. Having spent a night in the exceedingly neat city of Schwerin beside its pleasant waters, and under the protection of the cannon in the antiquated castle overhead, I set out for a walk of twenty miles onward to Ludwigslust. The road was a pleasant one, firm and dry, with trim grass edgings and sylvan seats on either side. The country itself was flat and dull, enlivened only now and then by a fir plantation or a pretty village. Brother tramps passed me from time to time with a cheerful salutation, and at three o’clock I passed within the new brick walls of Ludwigslust; a town dignified as a pleasure seat with a military garrison, a ducal palace, and an English park.
The inn to which I went in Ludwigslust, was the house of call for carpenters. The carpenters were there assembled in great force, laughing, smoking, and enjoying their red wine, which may have come from France, for Mecklenburg is no wine country. It was the quarter-day and pay-day of the carpenters, who were about to celebrate the date as usual with a supper. I went to sit down in the small travellers’ room, and was assailed instantly by the whole army of joiners, some with bleared eyes; with flushed faces under caps of every shape and colour; and a flexible pipe hanging from every mouth—Who was I?—What was I?—Whence did I come?—Where was I born? and whither was I going? etc., etc. When they had found out all about me and confirmed their knowledge by examination of my passport, which one dull dog persisted in regarding as a book of ballads, out of which he sang, I began to ask concerning food. “Nothing warm in the house,” said the housefather, a carpenter himself. “There will be a grand supper at sixo’clock, and everything and everybody is wanted in the preparation of it. Make yourself easy for the present with brown bread and dripping, and a glass of beer, and then you can make your dinner with us when we sup.” That suited me well enough.
The carpenters flowed out into the street, to take a stroll and get their appetites, leaving behind them one besotted man, who propped himself against the oven, and there gave himself a lecture on the blessings of equanimity under all circumstances of distress.
“Do you sleep here to-night?” inquired the host. Certainly, I desired to do so. “Then you must go to the police bureau for a permission.”—“But you have my passport; is not that sufficient?”—“Not in Ludwigslust; your passport must be held by the police, and they will give you in exchange for it a ticket, which I must hold, or else I dare not let you have a lodging.” I went to the police office at once; through the ill-paved street into the middle of the town. I went by a large gravelled square, which serves as a riding ground for the cavalry in the adjoining barracks; and a long broad street of no great beauty, ending in a flight of steps, led me then to the police office, and would have led me also, had that been my destination, to the ducal palace. The palace fronts to a paved square; it is a massive, noble edifice of stone, having before it a fine cascade with a treble fall. To the left, across a green meadow, I observed the church—the only church—a simple whitewashed building with a colonnaded front. At the foot of the low flight of steps was the police office, in which I found one man, who civilly copied my passport into a book, put it aside, and gave me a ticket of permission to remain one night in Ludwigslust. I was desired to call for my passport before leaving in the morning.
At seven o’clock there was no sign of supper. At eight o’clock the cloth was spread in a long, low lumber-room at the back of the inn, and the assembled carpenters took their seats before the board, or rather boards supported upon tressels. I took my place and waited hungrily. Very soon there was a great steam over the whole table sent up from huge tureens of boiled potatoes; smaller dishes of preserved prunes, boiled also, occupied the intervals. A bottle of red wine was placed for every two men. We then began our meal with soup; thin, sorry stuff. Then came the chief dishes, baked veal and baked pig’s head. The prunes were to be eaten with the veal, which meat, having been first boiled to make the soup, and then baked in a deep dish in a close oven to bring out some of thefaded flavour, was a sodden mass, and the whole meal was removed a very long way from the roast fillet of veal and pickled pork known to an Englishman. Our pig’s head was, however, capital,—no soup had been made out of that. The carpenters, with assiduous kindness, heaped choice bits upon my plate, and as I had not dined, I supped with energy. The drunken man who had fallen asleep by the stove sat by my side with greedy looks, eating nothing, for he had not paid his share; he was a man who drank away his gains, and he received no pity.
Then after supper there came toasts. The president was on his legs, all glasses were filled; men ready. “Long live the Guild of carpenters! Vivat h—o!” The ho! was a howl; the glasses clashed. “Long live all carpenters! Vivat ho—o!” At ten o’clock there was a bustle and confusion at the door, and a long string of lads marched, two and two, cap in hand, into the room. These were all the carpenters’ apprentices in Ludwigslust. Every quarterly night the hospitable carpenters have them in after supper to be regaled with beer and cordials, and initiated into the mysteries of jollity that are connected with the existence of a master carpenter. “Long live all carpenters’ apprentices! Vivat ho—o—o!” The apprentices having revelled in as much beer and spirits as could be got through, shouting included, in a quarter of an hour, formed double line again, and marched out under a fire of lusty cheers into the street. Some jolly carpenters still lingered in the supper room, smoking or singing choruses, or making partners of each other for mad waltzes round the table to the music of their tongues.
Longing for bed, I was obliged to wait until the landlord was at leisure to attend to me. After I rose next morning, I waited for three hours impatiently enough until the sleepy host had risen; for until I had received my ticket back from him I was unable to get my passport and go on. At length, however, I got out of the brick walls of Ludwigslust, and marched forward under a clear sky on the way to Perleberg, my next stage, distant about fifteen English miles.
Having passed through two dirty, ill-paved towns, and being in some uncertainty about the road, I asked my way of a short, red-faced man who, being himself bound for the frontier station, favoured me so far with his company. He was a post-boy whose vocation was destroyed, but who was nevertheless blessed withphilosophy enough to recognise the merits of the railway system, and to point out the posts marking the line between Berlin and Hamburg, with the comment that “the world must move.” It seemed to be enough for him that he lived in the recollection of the people on his old road-side, and that he could stop with me outside a toll-gate, the first I had seen in Germany, sure of the production of a bottle for a social dram, in which I cordially joined. Then presently we came to a small newly-built village, the Prussian military station. A sentinel standing silent and alone by his sentry box striped with the Prussian colours, black and white, marked where the road crossed the Prussian frontier. We passed unchallenged, and found dinner upon the territory of the Black Eagle, in a very modest house of entertainment.
Travelling alone onward to Perleberg, I stopped once more for refreshment at a melancholy, dirty place, having one common room, of which the chairs and tables contained as much heavy timber as would build a house. I wanted an hour’s rest, for my knapsack had become a burden to me, and the handles of the few tools I was obliged to carry dug themselves relentlessly into my back. “White or brown beer?” asked the attendant. Dolt that I was to answer Brown! They brought me a vile treacley compound that I could not drink; whereas the Berlin white beer is a famous effervescing liquor; so good, says a Berliner, that you cannot distinguish it from champagne if you drink it rapidly with closed eyes, and at the same time press your nose between your fingers. In the evening I got to Perleberg, and walking wearily up the old, irregular High Street, established myself at the Londoner Schenke—the London Tavern. I found the parlour pleasant and almost private, the hostess quiet and lady-like. While she was getting coffee ready for me, I paid my call of duty upon the police; for though my passport had beenvisédto Berlin in half a dozen places, the law required that I should not sleep in a new kingdom without first announcing my arrival.
At the upper end of the market place I found a red brick building with a gloomy door, opening upon a broad stone staircase, by which I mounted to the magistrate’s room. That was a lofty hall, badly lighted by two little windows, and scantily furnished with a few seats. Behind a railing sat the magistrate in a velvet skull-cap and black robe; a short fat man with a satisfied face, but unsatisfied and restless eyes. Two armed soldiers shared with him the space beyond the rail. Two townsmen, hat in hand, were patientlywaiting for their passes. Having mentioned my business, I was told that I might wait; standing, of course. The heavy quiet of the room was broken presently by the entrance of two young workmen in clean blouses, bound upon an errand like my own, who hovered in a tremulous condition near the doorway.
The magistrate of Perleberg, after awhile, looked at my passport, and asked “Have you the requisite amount of travelling money to show?” I had not expected such a question, but the two gold ducats were still in my fob, and I produced them with the air of a fine gentleman. One of the soldiers took them in his hand, examined them and passed them to his comrade, who passed them to the townspeople. “They are good,” said the soldier, as he put them back into my hand.—“Is that enough?” I asked, as though there had been thousands of such things about other parts of my person, for I saw that I had made an impression. “That will do,” said the magistrate, “you may sit down.” O miserable homage before wealth! They would not keep me standing.
It had grown dark, and a lighted candle had been placed upon the desk of the chief magistrate, a most diligent man in his office, who, seeing no description of my person in the passport, set to work with the zest of an artist upon the depiction of my features. Examining each feature minutely with a candle, he put down the results of his researches, and then finally read off his work to me with this note at the bottom—“The little finger of his left hand is crooked.”
The hostess of the London Tavern, when I got back to my quarters, must have heard about my wealth. That pleasant little maiden lady told me all about her house, and how it had been named afresh after the King of Prussia slept there on his way to London, where he was to act as sponsor to the Prince of Wales. I, who had been turned away from the doors of the humblest inns, was flattered and courted by a landlady who had entertained His Majesty of Prussia. The neatest of chambermaids conducted me to an elegant bedchamber—“her own room,” the little old maid had said as I left her—and there I slept upon the couch sacred to her maiden meditations, among hangings white as snow.
The next morning I went out into Perleberg,—a ricketty old place, full of rats and legends. There is a colossal figure in the market-place of an armed knight, eighteen or twenty feet high, gazing eternally into the fruit baskets below. He has his head uncovered, his hand upon his sword, and is made of stone; but who heis nobody seemed to know; I was only told that the statue would turn any one to stone who fixed his eyes upon it in intense gaze for a sufficiently long time. I visited the chief jeweller, a wonderful man, who was said to have visited nearly all parts of the known world except London and Paris. I found him with one workman, very busy, but not doing much; and he was very civil, although manifestly labouring under the fear that I had come to ask for a “viaticum.” I did not. I went back to eat a hearty breakfast at the London Tavern, where I found the mistress gracious, and the handmaid very chatty and coquettish. From her talk I half concluded that I was believed to be an Englishman who travelled like a journeyman for the humour of the thing: the English are so odd, and at the London Tavern they had not been without experience of English ways. My display of the gold pieces must have been communicated to them overnight, by one of the townspeople who heard me tell the magistrate at what inn I was staying.
From Perleberg to Keritz was eighteen miles. Upon the road I came up with a poor fellow limping pitiably. He had a flat wooden box upon his back, being a tramping glazier; and he made snail’s progress, having his left thigh swollen by much walking. I loitered with him as long as my time allowed, and then dashed on to recover the lost ground. Passing at a great pace a neat road-side inn, singing the while, a jolly red face blazed out upon me from the lattice window. “Ei da! You are merry. Whither so fast?”—“To Berlin.”—“Wait an instant and I’m with you.” Two odd figures tumbled almost at the end of the instant out of the house door. One a burly man with a red face and a large moustache, the other a chalky young man with a pair of Wellington boots slung round his neck. They were both native Prussians on the way from Hamburg to Berlin, having come through Magdeburg, travelling, they declared, at the rate of about six-and-twenty English miles a day. These Prussians will talk; but at whatever rate my friends might have travelled, they were nearly dead beat. They had sent on their knapsacks by the waggon, finding them unmercifully heavy. The stout traveller had a white sack over his shoulders, his trousers tucked up to his knees, and his Wellington boots cut down into ankle-jacks to ease his chafed shins, that were already dotted with hectic red spots from over-exertion. His young friend carried his best Wellingtons about his neck, and wore a pair of cracked boots, through which I could see the colour, in some places,of his dark blue socks, in other places of his dark red flesh. Both were lamed by the same cause, inflammation of the front of the leg, in which part I also had begun to feel some smartings.
We got on merrily, in spite of our legs, and overtook two very young travellers, whom I recognised as the flutterers before the presence of the magistrate at Perleberg. One proved to be a bookbinder, the other a wood-turner. They were fresh upon their travels, and their clean white blouses, the arrangements of their knapsacks, and the little neatnesses and comforts here and there about them, showed that they had not yet travelled many days’ march from a mother’s care. Then we toiled on, until our elder friend grew worse and worse about his feet, laughing and joking himself out of pain as he was able. Finally, he could go no farther, and we waited until we could send him forward in a passing cart.
He being dispatched, we travelled on, I and my friend with the boot-necklace, till we met a little crowd of men in blouses, little queer caps, knapsacks, and ragged beards, all carrying sticks. They were travelling boys like ourselves, bound from Berlin to Hamburg. “Halloo!” they cried. “Halloo!” we answered, shouting in unison as we approached each other. When we met, a little friendly skirmish with our sticks was the first act of greeting. A storm of questions and replies then followed. We all knew each other in a few minutes; carpenters, turners, glovers were there,—not a jeweller among them but myself. We parted soon, for time was precious. “Love to Berlin,” cried one of them back to us. “My compliments to Hamburg,” I replied; and then we all struck up an amatory chorus of the “Fare thee well, love” species, that fitted properly with our position.
Continuing upon our way we found our lame companion smoking a pipe comfortably outside the village inn at Warnow. His cart was resting there for bait to man and horse. We baited also and discussed black bread-and-butter, and Berlin white beer, till the cart carried away our moustachioed friend, never again, perhaps, to meet us in this world, and not likely to be recognised by his moustachios in the other.
My chalky comrade, who was also very lame, lay on the ground in a desperate condition before the day was over, and it was with some difficulty that I brought him safe by nightfall into Wusterhausen. He had become also mysterious, and evidently inquisitiveas to the state of my finances, exhibiting on his own part hasty glimpses of a brass medal wrapped up in fine wool, which he wished me to look upon as a double ducat. When we got to the inn-door, my friend made a hurried proposition very nervously, which made his purpose clear. There were sixty English miles of road between us and Berlin; he was knocked up, and a fast coach, or rumbling omnibus, accommodating six insides, would start for Berlin in the morning. He thought he could bargain with the coachman to take us to Berlin for a dollar—three shillings—a piece, if I did not mind advancing his fare, because he did not want to change the double ducat until he got home. I put no difficulty in his way, for he was a good fellow, and moreover would be well able to help me in return, by telling me the addresses of some people I depended upon finding in Berlin. He proceeded, therefore, into the agonies of bargaining, and was not disappointed in his expectation. At the price of a dollar a-piece we were packed next morning in a frowsy vehicle, tainted with much tobacco-smoke, to which he came with his swollen feet pressed only half-way down into the legs of his best Wellingtons. The ride was long and dull, for there was little prospect to be caught through the small, dirty window; and the air tasted of German tinder. From a cottage villa on the roadside, a German student added himself to the three passengers that started from Wusterhausen. He came to us with a pipe in his mouth, unwashed, and hurriedly swaddled in a morning gown, carelessly tied with a cord about the middle. After a few miles travelling the vehicle was full, and remained full—until we at last reached Berlin.
There I found no work, and wandered listlessly through the museums and picture-galleries; for a troubled mind is a poor critic in works of art. So I squeezed myself into the Police Court, meaning to leave Berlin, and had the distinction of being beckoned, before my turn out of the reeking mass of applicants for passports, because my clothes had a respectable appearance, and I wore a showy pin in my cravat.
berlin.—our herberge.
Fairly in Prussia! We have passed the frontier town of Perleberg, and press onward in company with a glovemaker of Berlin, last from Copenhagen, whom we have overtaken on the road towards Wusterhausen.
“Thou wouldst know, good friend, the nature of my prospects in Berlin when I arrive there? Have I letters of recommendation—am I provided in case of the worst? Brother, not so! I am provided for nothing. I dare the vicissitudes of fortune. I had a friend in Hamburg, a Frenchman, who departed thence five months ago for Berlin, under a promise to write to me at the lapse of a month. He has never written, and he is my hope. That is all. Let us go on.”
“I have a cousin,” says the glovemaker, “who is a jeweller in Berlin. I will recommend you to him. His name is Kupferkram.”
“Strange! I knew a Kupferkram in Hamburg; a short, sallow man, with no beard.”
“A Prussian?”
“Yes.”
“It cannot be that my cousin was in Hamburg and I not know it. I was there twelve months.”
“Why not? A German will be anywhere in the course of twelve months except where you expect to find him.”
“His name is Gottlob—Gottlob Kupferkram.”
“The very man! Does he not lisp like a child, and his father sell sausages in the stadt?”
“Donnerwetter! Ja!”
This may not appear to be of much importance, but to me it is everything; for upon the discovery of this vender of sausages depends my meeting with my best and only friend in Berlin, Alcibiade Tourniquet, of Argenteuil, the Frenchman before mentioned. It is at least a strange coincidence.
We came into the capital of Prussia in the eil-wagen from Wusterhausen. We had tramped the previous day a distance of good two-and-thirty English miles, through a flat, uninteresting country, and being dead beat, had made an anxious bargain with the driver of the “Fast-coach,” to carry us to Berlin for a dollar a-head. It was late in the evening as we rumbled heavily along the dusty road, and through the long vista of thick plantations which skirt the public way as you enter the city from Spandau. We dismounted, cramped and weary, from our vehicle, and my companion, a native of Berlin, unwilling to disturb his friends at that late hour, and in his then travel-worn guise; and I myself being unknown and unknowing in the huge capital, led the way at once to “Our Herberge.”
The English term “House of Call” is but an inadequate translation of the German “Herberge.” It must be remembered that the German artisan is ruled in everything by the state; for while English workmen, by their own collective will, raise up their trade or other societies, in whatever form or to whatever purpose their intelligence or their caprices may dictate to them, the German, on the contrary, discovers among his very first perceptions that his position and treatment in the world is already fixed and irrevocable. He becomes numbered and labelled from the hour of his birth, and the gathering items of his existence are duly recorded—not in the annals of history—but in the registry of the police. Thus he finds that the State, in the shape of his Zunft or Guild, is his Sick Benefit Club and his Burial Society, his Travellers’ Fund and his Trade Roll-Call; aspires indeed to be everything he ought to desire, and certainly succeeds in being a great deal that he does not want.
I have a little paper at my hand presented to me by the police of Dresden, which may help to elucidate the question of associations of workmen in Germany. It is an “Ordinance” by which “We, Frederick Augustus, by God’s grace King of Saxony, &c., &c., make known to all working journeymen the penalties to which they are liable should they take part in any disallowed ‘workmen’s unions, tribunals, or declarations;’” the said penalties having been determined on by the various governments of the German Union. “Independently,” says the Ordinance, “of the punishment” (not named) “which may be inflicted for the offence, the delinquent shall be deprived of his papers, which shall be sealed up and sent to his home Government. On his release from prison(!) he shallreceive a restricted pass for his immediate and direct return home; and on his arrival there he shall be strictly confined within its limits, nor ever be permitted to travel into the other states of the German Union, until by a long course of repentance and good behaviour his home government may think him worthy of such a favour.” It will easily be understood from this that mechanics’ or other institutions, independent of the government, are unknown.
The German Herberge is the home of the travelling workman. It should be clean and wholesome; there should he be provided, together with simple and nutritious food, every necessary information connected with his trade, and such aid and reasonable solace as his often wearisome pilgrimage requires. All this is to be rendered at a just and remunerative price, and it is usually supposed that the fulfilment of these requisites is guaranteed by the care and surveillance of the police. But this is a fiction.
Our Herberge is in the Schuster-gasse; and a vile, ill-conditioned, uncleanly den it is; nor, I am sorry to say, are its occupants, in appearance at least, unworthy of their abode. But we must not be uncharitable; it is a hard task this tramping through the length and breadth of the land; and he is a smart fellow who can keep his toilet in anything like decent condition amid the dust, the wind, the pelting rain or the weltering sunshine that beset and envelope him on the implacable high road. As there is no help, we take our places among the little herd of weary mortals without a murmur; among the ragged beards and uncombed locks; the soiled blouses and travel-worn shoe-leather; the horny hands and embrowned visages of our motley companions. We are duly marshalled to bed at eight o’clock with the rest; huddled into our loft where nine beds await some sixteen occupants; and having undergone the customary examination as to our freedom from disease and vermin, are safely locked in our dormitory, to be released only at the good will of the “Vater” in the morning.
Your German is truly a patient animal; the laws of his Guild compel him to wander for a period of years, but the laws of his country do not provide him with even the decencies of life upon the road. With his humble pack, and his few hoarded dollars, he sets forth upon the road of life; he is bullied and hustled by the police upon every step of his journey; burdened with vexatious regulations at every halting-place; and while the law forbids him to seek any other shelter than that of his Herberge, it leaves it to themercy of his host to yield him the worst fare, spread for him the vilest litter, and to filch him of his scanty savings in the bargain. What, in Heaven’s name! are the accommodations for which we in the Schuster-gasse are called upon to pay? There is the common room with its rude benches and tables; a stone-paved court-yard with offices, doubtless at one period appropriated as stabling, but the ground floor of which is now penned off for some few choice biped occupants; while the story above, reached by a railed ladder, and, in fact, no more than a stable loft, is nightly crammed to the door with sweltering humanity. For the purpose of cleanliness there is no other toilette apparatus than the iron pump in the yard; and for the claims of nature and decency, no better resource than is afforded by the sheltering arch of the nearest bridge over the Spree.
The goldsmiths and jewellers in Berlin are too inconsiderable a body to have a Herberge of their own, and therefore we crowd in with the turners, the carpenters, and the smiths; the glove-makers, bookbinders, and others who claim the hospitalities of the asylum in the Schuster-gasse. Let us take a sketch or two among them that may serve as a sample of the whole.
We have a sturdy young carpenter from Darmstadt, bound to Vienna, or wherever else he may find a resting-place, who makes his morning and almost only meal ofKümmel—corn spirit prepared with caraways—and brown bread; and whose great exploit and daily exercise is that of lifting the great table in the common room with his teeth. An iron-jawed fellow he is, with every muscle in his well-knit body to match. Fortunately, though a Goliath in strength, he is as simple-minded and joyous as a child.
Then comes a restless pigmy of a Hungarian, a jeweller, last from Dresden, full of life and song, but who complains ruefully that the potatoes of Berlin are violently anti-dyspeptic. This suffering wanderer from the banks of the Theiss is also vehemently expressive in his opinion that the indiscriminate use of soap is injurious to the skin, and, as a matter of principle, never uses any.
Near him stands a lank native of Lübeck, a fringe-maker, whose whole pride and happiness is concentrated in his ponderous staff of pilgrimage; a patriarchal wand, indeed! rightly bequeathed as an heirloom from father to son, and in its state and appearance not unworthy of the reverence with which it is regarded. It is no flimsy cane to startle flies with, but a stout stem some six feet long, duly peeled,scraped and polished, and mounted with a chased head of massive silver.
Close by his side an effeminate leather-dresser from Carlsruhe sits stroking his yellow goat’s beard. Instead of strapping his knapsack to his back like a stalwart youth, after the manly fashion of his forefathers when on the tramp, he trundles behind him as he goes, a little iron chaise loaded with his pack and worldly equipage.
There broods a sombre cordwainer from Bremen, gloating over his enormous pipe, in form and size like a small barrel, raising an atmosphere for himself of the fumes of coarse uncutknaster. He has doffed his white kittel (blouse), and has wriggled himself into a short-waisted, long-skirted, German frock-coat, which, having been badly packed in his knapsack, exhibits every crease and wrinkle it has acquired during a three weeks’ march. Know, friend, that the skilful folding of apparel, to be worn on his arrival in every important town, is one of the necessary acquirements of the German wanderer.
Add to these a rollicking saddler from Heldesheim, who figures in a full beard, a rich cluster of crisp, brown curls, his own especial pride, and the object of deep envy to his less hirsute companions; and who, far too fond of corn brandy-wine, goes about singing continually the song of the German tramp, “Ich Liebe das liederliche Leben!”—This vagabond life I delight in!—an earnest, quiet student, who, for reasons of economy, has made the Schuster-gasse his place of refuge; and a dishevelled button-maker, last from Hamburg, who has just received his geschenck, or trade-gift, amounting to fifteen silver groschens, about eighteenpence in English money; and who ponders drearily over it as it lies in the palm of his hand, wondering how far this slender sum will carry him on the road to Breslau, his native place, still some two hundred miles away.
We have among us the wily and the simple, the boisterous and the patient, the taciturn and the unruly; but though they will sing songs before they go to sleep, and swagger enormously among themselves, they become as still and meek as doves at the voice of the Herberges-Vater (the father of the Herberge), and quake like timid mice beneath the eye of the police.
a street in berlin.
Berlin is a fine city, let the wise Germans of the East say what they will. It may be deficient in those monumental records of “the good old times,” the crumbling church, the thick-walled tower, the halls and dungeons of feudal barbarism, but it abounds with evidences of the vigour and life of modern taste and skill; and instead of daily sinking into rotten significance, like some of its elder brethren, is hourly growing in beauty and strength. It has all the attributes of a great city—spacious “places,” handsome edifices, broad and well-paved streets. Its monuments, while they are evidences of great cultivation in the arts, tell of times and events just old enough to be beyond the ken of our own experiences, yet possess all the truth and vividness of recent history. “Der Alter Fritz,” Blucher, Zieten, Seyditz, Winterfeldt, Keith, and “Der Alter Dessauer”—what names are these in Prussian story!
The entrance into Berlin, on the western side, from Spandau, by the Brandenburger Gate, is the finest that the capital of Prussia has to present. A thickly-planted wood skirts the road for a mile or two before you reach the city. The trees are dwarfed and twisted, for they cannot grow freely in the dense, eternal sands of this part of North Germany, but they form a rough fringing to the white road; while the noble gate itself, built of massive stone in the Doric order of architecture, and surmounted by an effective group of a four-horse chariot, within which stands the figure of Victory raising the Roman eagle above the almost winged steeds, might grace the entrance to the city of the Cæsars.
This Brandenburger Thor, as it is called, is a copy of the Propylæa of the Acropolis of Athens, but built on a much grander scale. The central gate is of iron, eighteen feet high; of the fourteen land gates of Berlin it is immeasurably the finest, and it acquires a still deeper interest when some enthusiastic Berliner, pointing to the prancing steeds upon the summit of the arch, tells you how Napoleon in his admiration had ordered this self-same group to be transported toParis in 1807, to ornament a French “arch de triomphe,” and how “We, the Prussians,” had torn the spoil from the eagle’s very nest in 1814, to replant it on its original site. A glow of military ardour flushes over your heart at the recital, and the echoes of a hundred battles thunder in your ears.
Through this gate, which is in the Dorotheen Stadt, after crossing the Square of Paris, we enter upon one of the handsomest streets in the world, and one bearing the most poetical of titles: “Unter-den-Linden,”—“Under the Lime Trees!”—there is something at once charming and imposing in the very sound. Nor is this appellation an empty fiction, for there stand the lime trees themselves, in two double rows with their delicate green leaves rustling in the breeze, forming a two-fold verdant allée, vigorous and fragrant, down the centre of the street, and into the very heart of the city. Unter-den-Linden itself is two thousand seven hundred and fifty-four feet in length, and one hundred and seventy-four in width; but it extends, under another title, for a much greater distance. This is the summer evening’s ramble of your true Berliner, and not a little proud and pompous he is as he parades himself and family beneath the leafy canopy; and here, in the snowy winters, when the city lies half buried in the snowdrift, the gaily dressed sleighs go skimming under the leafless branches, filling the bright cold air with the music of their bells.
As we proceed deeper into the city, we find gay shops and stately houses. A noble range of buildings appropriated to the foreign embassies rises upon the left hand, and is succeeded by the Royal Academy; while some distance beyond stands the University, an edifice of a rather sombre appearance, although graced with columns and pilasters of the Corinthian order. To enter it you traverse a spacious court-yard, and it may be that the nature of its contents impart a melancholy character to the building itself; for, on ascending its stone staircase, and wandering for a brief period among its bottles and cases, its wax models and human preserves, we find them of so unsightly and disgusting a character that we are happy to regain the echoing corridor which had led us into this huge, systematised charnel-house.
As we cross to the opposite side of the broad street, the Royal Library faces us; a massive temple of stored knowledge, polyglot and universal; while to the right of it, in the centre of a paved space of considerable extent, stands the Catholic church of St. Hedwig,at once a model of Roman architecture, and the emblem of the liberty of faith.
Close at hand is the Opera-house, once already purified by fire, like so many of its companion edifices, and only lately rebuilt. Some idea may be formed of the extent of its interior from the fact that it affords accommodation for three thousand spectators. Our way lies onward still. What noble figure is this? Simple but commanding in character and attitude, it fixes your attention at once. Look at the superscription. Upon a scroll on its pedestal are the words “Frederick William III. to Field Marshal Prince Blucher of Wahlstatt, in the year 1826.” Yes! the impetuous soldier, figured in eternal bronze by the first sculptor of Prussia, Rauch himself, here claims and receives the admiration of his countrymen. Bare-headed stands the old warrior, but is duly crowned with laurels on every returning anniversary of the well remembered day, the 18th of June.
Leaving the sanctuary of the Christian Deity, the heathen temple of Terpsichore, and the effigy of the renowned soldier, thus grouped together, we traverse the fine road, and pause for a moment to look at a severe but elegant structure, erected, we are told, in exact imitation of a Romancastrum, or fortress, and therefore eminently in character with the purpose for which it is intended. The smart Prussian infantry are grouped about its pillared entrance, which is graced also by two statues of military celebrities—for this is the royal guard-house.
“Der Alter Fritz.” “Old Fred!” This is the familiar title bestowed upon a great monarch; and there is something in this nickname a thousand times more telling to the ear and heart of a Prussian than the stately appellation of “Frederick the Great.” The former is for their own hearts and homes, the latter for the world. And for the world also is the noble equestrian statue upon which we now gaze. It is a question whether a work of sterling genius does not speak as effectively to the eye of the uninitiated as to that of the most inveterate stickler for antecedents of grace and technicalities of beauty. This statue of Frederick of Prussia tells upon the sense at once, because it is true to art as established by ancient critics, but more so, because it is imitated nature, which art too often only presumes to be, reckoning too much upon fixed rules and time-honoured dogmas. It is noble and impressive, because itislike; no antiquated Roman figure intogaandcalcei, but the representation of the living man.
Das Zeughaus, or arsenal, which we now approach, is a massive quadrangular building, and the warlike character of its architectural decorations strikingly indicate the nature of its contents. We pass through the open gate into an inner court, and looking round upon the sombre walls which inclose us, see the fearful faces of dead and dying men, cut in stone, which the taste or caprice of the architect has considered their fittest ornament. There is something strangely original and attractive in the grotesque hideousness of these heads, agonised with pain, scowling in anger, or frightful with their upturned eyes in the rigidity of death, all bleached and shadowed as they are by the vicissitudes of the weather.
Within the arsenal we find walls of glistening steel, columns of lances, architectural and other devices worked out in dagger blades and pistol handles; while battered armour and faded draperies, in the shape of pennons and standards, storm and battle-tattered, help to make up trophies, and swing duskily in every corner.
After a rapid survey, we are about to leave this magazine of Bellona, when we are struck by the sight of an object which reminds us so completely of one of those “gorgeous processions” in Eastern “spectacles” at home, that we wonder for a moment whether it be “part of the play,” or tangible, sober reality. Yes! placed upon a scarlet cushion lies an enormous gilt key (such a one as clown in the pantomime might open his writing-desk with, or such as hangs over a locksmith’s door), and above it glistens a golden legend to the effect that the treasure beneath was presented to “William of Prussia by his loving cousin, Nicolas, Emperor of all the Russias,” and is no less a prize than the identical key of the captured city of Adrianople! Has, then, the Russian Emperor so many such trophies of Eastern spoliation that his own museums at Petersburg are insufficient to contain them?
Up the steep way towards the residence of the Prince of Prussia, guarded by its zealous sentries, we pursue our course, and reach the first bridge we have yet seen, being one of the very many which span the Spree as it meanders through the city. This river does not present an imposing appearance in any part of Berlin. The Berliners may shake their heads, and talk of the “Lange Brücke,” but let them remember that in no part does the Spree exceed two hundred feet in width. Moreover, the manner in which it is jammedup between locks, like a mere canal—one is puzzled sometimes to know which is canal and which river—does not improve its appearance, while the use to which some of its bridges are appropriated does not increase its purity. Passing onwards we come upon the Schloss Platz, which is itself half a garden, and find ourselves in the midst of an assemblage of public wonders—the Museum, the Protestant Cathedral, a handsome basin and fountain (the pride of the true Berliner), the Exchange, and the Old Palace.
The Museum stands on the left-hand, gracefully shaded by young trees. Traversing this miniature grove, which guards its entrance, and passing by the lofty fountain scattering its spray upon the leaves, we come upon an elegant vase of gigantic proportions, sculptured from a solid mass of native granite. Ascending into the body of the building by a sombre stone staircase, we reach the Gallery of Antiquities and the Museum of Paintings. The latter, though no doubt very valuable, appeals unsatisfactorily to me (not presuming to be a critic), and is of a peculiarly rigid, ecclesiastical character, of the early school; certainly one of its chief features is a crowd of martyred St. Sebastians.
The portion of the Museum appropriated to painting, unlike the National Gallery of London, and the Pinakothek at Munich, receives a lateral light. Imagine a long gallery divided into small cabinets by partitions, which advance only so far from the outer wall as to leave a commodious passage along its entire extent; imagine also that each of these cabinets has a lofty window, and that on its side walls (the partitions) are suspended the paintings for exhibition,—and you will form something like a notion of the general arrangement. An effectiveensembleis out of the question; but, on the other hand, every painting is well lighted, and a better opportunity is afforded for quiet observation and study.
We descend into the “Platz,” and proceed towards the palace, a huge rectangular building, striped with columns, dotted with windows, and blackened as few continental edifices are.
The palace of the kings of Prussia—few as they have been—has surely its thrilling historical records. Doubtless; and through them all the spirit of theoneking, “Der Alter Fritz,” shines, all but visible. Here did he hold his councils, here sit in private study; this was his favourite promenade, here did he take his rest. These details light up the imagination; but when we have traversed the echoing galleries, admired the gilt mouldings and the costlyhangings, the quaint furniture and beautiful pictures: when we have, in short, become wrought into enthusiasm by the clustering memories of a great monarch, by traits and traditions which fill the very air, what do we see next? We are ushered into a private chamber, and called upon to express our especial reverence for a miserable figure, dressed up in the Great Frederick’s “own clothes;” seated in his own chair, stuck into his identical boots; his own redoubtable stick dangling from its splayed fingers, and the whole contemptible effigy crowned by the very three-cornered hat and crisp wig he last wore! The spirit of mountebankism overshadows the spirit of the mighty man, and his very relics are rendered ridiculous.
We turn from this puppet-show to contemplate with a melancholy wonder the truly iron records of the almost life-imprisonment of Baron von Trenck. For here, a silent memorial of at least one bad act of the Prussian monarch, are iron cups and utensils engraved with scrolls and legends; the work, not of the skilled artisan with tempered and well-prepared gravers, but of the patient hands of a state prisoner with a mere nail sharpened on the stony walls of his dungeon, and the painful result of long and weary years. A strange contrast! the waxen image of the jailer, tricked out in his last garments; the solitary labours of his captive.
Thinking more of the soldier and less of the king, we quit the palace and turn on the left hand once more towards the waters of the Spree. Here is one other monument we must not forget in our hasty ramble through the main artery of the Prussian capital. In the centre of the Lange Brücke (the Long Bridge) stands the bronze figure of the last Elector and Duke of Brandenburg, Frederick William, the grandfather of Frederick the Great. It is a well-executed equestrian statue, but to my mind the four figures clustered round the pediment, on whose hands still hang the broken chains of slavery, are better works of art, as well as admirable emblems of the energetic materials—the oppressed but spirited inhabitants of a few small states—of which the now powerful kingdom of Prussia was originally formed.
We might follow the course of the wandering river over whose waters we now stand, and thus penetrate into the heart of the old city, but we should find little that was picturesque, and a great deal that was very unclean. Indeed, in spite of its general beauty, Berlin is lamentably deficient in the modern and common-placearticle, sewerage. But even this will come; and in the meantime we may well ponder over the rapid growth of the city, since the brief space of time that has elapsed since it was the little town of Cologne upon the Spree, to distinguish it from the then greater one of Cologne upon the Rhine.
berlin.—police and people.
It may not appear correct to an English reader to couple the people and the police thus cavalierly together, but in Prussia, as in the rest of Germany, the police are so completely bound up in, and their services so entirely devoted to, the every-day existence, as well as any more prominent acts of the people, that it is impossible to proceed far with the one without falling into the company of the other. A few facts may serve to illustrate this point.
We (Alcibiade and I) are here duly received into the employment of Herr Stickl, Jeweller to the Court. This may appear a matter of no importance to any but ourselves; nevertheless the “Herr” is bound duly to notify the circumstance to the police, with date and certification, and must also instruct the Forsteher, or chief of the Guild of goldsmiths and jewellers, of the matter, that we may be properly registered by corporation and police. This is item number one. But I am still unhoused, and here my good friend and fellow-workman, Alcibiade Tourniquet, native of Argenteuil, stands me in good stead. Tourniquet claims to be a Parisian, and has lofty notions about style and appearances. He lives in Jerusalem Strasse in a grand house, with aporte cochère, and a wide, scrambling staircase. He offers me a share in his apartment, which is light and commodious; and as his landlady generously consents to provide an additional bed for my accommodation, on condition of doubling the rent, that matter is satisfactorily arranged. Alcibiade has experiences to relate, and this is one of them:
“Pense donc!” cries he. “I arrive in Berlin a perfect stranger. Without work and without friends, I find living at an hotel too expensive: Bon!—I look about me for some quiet little chambregarni, and finding one to my liking, up a great many stairs, genteelly furnished, and not too dear, I move myself and my little baggage into it without further inquiry. Bon! Imagine me on the first night of residence, snugly coiled up between my two feather beds in true German fashion, dreaming of la belle France, and of the grapes at Argenteuil, when rap, rap, rap! comes a tantamarre at the chamber door, and I start up wide awake all at once, and hear a shuffling noise outside, and a rough voice which calls to be admitted. ‘Diable! qu’est que tu veux, donc?’ I inquire. But before I can make up my mind whether to admit them or not, crack! goes the door, and half a dozen Prussian police take my citadel by storm, and surround me in a moment. I complain indignantly, but it is of no use. I hurl at them—not my boots—but all the hard words I know of in their own abominable language, together with a considerable quantity of good French, but all of no avail; for they make me dress myself and carry me off bodily with bag and baggage to the police-bureau. And what was it all about, pense tu? Just this: they said I had got into a suspected house, and that it was for my own protection I was made a prisoner of! Nom de Dieu! that might be all very well, but there was no necessity to pull me out of bed to take care of me; and it was not till I had shown that my papers were allen regle, and threatened an appeal to the French Ambassador, that they gave me these soft words, and expressed their regret at my discomfiture. Du reste, what can you expect? they are only Prussians.” This is item number two.
I too have a little experience of the Prussian Police; let me relate it. Being regularly domiciled, it was necessary that I should inform them of my residence. I stand within the dingy little bureau, and hand over a certificate from my landlord in proof of my place of habitation. The liveried functionary casts it back to me, with the curt remark, “It is imperfect, the year is omitted.” And so it is; and I trudge back to my landlord to have this rather important omission rectified. Returning, in haste, I re-present my document, corrected and revised, for inspection. “This won’t do,” exclaims the irate registrar of apartments; “the day of the week should be mentioned.” Dull-headed landlord! unlucky lodger!—it should have been written, “Wednesday, the 19th of,” etc. This looks something like quibbling, however, and no doubt I express as much by my countenance as I leave the bureau, and race back toJerusalem Strasse once more. For the third time I offer my credentials. “This will do,” observes the official, with a ferocious calmness, “but I must have a duplicate of this, for the convenience of entry and reference.” Now, by all the gilded buttons on the best coat of the British Ambassador, this is too bad! and I say as much. “You have nothing of this sort in England, I suppose?” sneers the clerk-policeman. “No, thank Heaven!” I exclaim, as I rush home once more to obtain the copy of my certificate. This is item the third. To a Prussian, all this is a mere matter of course, yet to such a degree does this home interference extend, that theporte cochèreof our grand house, and the door of every other house in Jerusalem Strasse, is officially closed at nine o’clock in the evening; and no man can enter his own residence after that hour without first applying to the police-watchman, who retains in his keeping, literally and in fact, the “key of the street.”
While on my way to Berlin, I had been frequently warned by Germans, natives of other states, of the boastful and deceptive character of the Prussians. Such was the general opinion expressed; and although I never found them deceptive, the epithet of boastful seemed only too truthfully bestowed. A Prussian is naturally a swaggerer; but then, unfortunately for other Germans, who are swaggerers too, the Prussian has something to boast of. He feels and thinks differently to those around him; for, by the very impetus of his nature, he stands on a higher position. It is because Prussia has progressed like a giant, while the rest of Germany has been lagging behind, or actually losing ground, that every individual in her now large area seems personally to have aided in the work, and acts and speaks as if the whole ultimate result depended upon his own exertions. This naturally leads to exaggeration, both in words and actions, and your true Berliner figures as a sort of Ancient Pistol, with more words than he knows properly what to do with, and more pretensions than he is able to maintain. One striking characteristic of the people of Berlin is the Franco-mania, which prevails among all classes. This may be the result of the decided leaning towards France and its literature, which was evinced by their almost idolised king, Frederick the Great; but one would think that the events of the last war with Napoleon must have effectually obliterated that. But, no; in their language, their literature, their places of public amusement, their shops, and promenades, French words sound in your ears, or meet your eye at everyturn; while the sometimes ridiculous mimicry of French habits forces itself upon your attention. There would be nothing so very remarkable in this, if the opinion generally expressed of the French people were consonant with it; but while the Berliner apes the Parisian in language and manners, he never fails to express his derision, and even contempt, for the whole French nation on every convenient opportunity. I suspect, however, that these remarks might not inaptly apply to the inhabitants of the British capital, as well as those of Berlin.
kreutzberg.—a prussian supper and carouse.
Herr Kupferkram the elder, I have done thee wrong. I have set thee down as a mere vender of sausages, and lo! thou holdest tavern and eating-house; dispensing prandial portions of savoury delicacies in flesh and vegetable, at the charge of six silver groschens the meal. I beg a thousand pardons; and as a sincere mark of contrition, will consent to swallow thy dinners for a while.
“Will the Herrn Tourniquet and Tuci,” said the Frau Kupferkram one morning, with a duck and a smirk, “do us the honour of supping with us this evening? There will be a few friends, for this is the ‘nahmenstag’ of our dear Gottlob, now in England.”
“Liebe Frau Kupferkram, we shall be delighted!”
I ought, perhaps, to observe, that in Prussia, although a Protestant country, the Catholic custom of commemorating the “saint” rather than the “birth-day,” is almost universal. The former is called the “nahmenstag,” or name-day.
But the day is yet “so young,” that nothing short of the most inveterate gluttony could bend the mind at present upon the evening’s festivity; and moreover, the Berlin races have called us from the workshop and the cares of labour, and our very souls are in the stirrups, eagerly panting for the sport. My dear reader, how can I describe what I never saw? Did we not expend two silver groschens in a programme of the races, and gloat over the spiritedengraving of a “flying” something, which was its appropriate heading, and which you would swear was executed somewhere in the neighbourhood of Holywell Street, Strand? Did we not grow hotter than even the hot sun could make us, in ploughing through the sand, and commit some careless uncivilities in struggling among the crowd that hemmed the course as with a wall? See? Of course not! Nobody at the Berlin races ever does see anything but the mounted police and the dust. Yes, sir, lay out two dollars in a “card” for the grand stand, and fix it in your hat-band like a turnpike ticket, and you may saunter through the whole police-military cordon; but be one of the crowd, and trust to no other aid than is afforded by your own eyes, and the said cordon will be the extent of your vision.
A fig for the races! we will go and see the Kreutzberg instead. Our way lies through the Halle gate—Halle, a town that belonged to the Saxons before the French invasion, but lost through their adherence to Napoleon, is now the seat of a Prussian university—and by the Place of the Belle Alliance. What “alliance?” The alliance of sovereigns against destruction, or of people against tyranny? One and both; but while the union of the former has triumphed over the common leveller, the latter, by whose aid it was effected, still drag their unrelenting chains. The Kreutzberg is consecrated to the same magniloquent union, and bears upon its head a military monument illustrative of the triumph of a roused and indignant people against a great oppression; but alas! it does not record the emancipation of that same people from intestine slavery. But that is their business and not ours.
The Kreutzberg stands about a mile and a half from the city gates, and rears its grey height like a mountain amid the general level, commanding a prospect of thirty miles around. Berlin, half garden, half palace, lies at your feet, rising majestically from the sandy plain, and irregularly divided by the winding Spree. The surrounding country, by its luxuriance, gives evidence of the energy of an industrious race struggling against a naturally barren soil. Turning our eyes upwards upon the military monument which graces the summit of the hill, we cannot repress our gratification at its beauty. A terrace eighty feet in diameter rises from the bare ground, and in its centre, upon a substructure of stone, towers an iron temple or shrine in the turreted Gothic style, divided into twelve chapels or niches. In each recess stands a figure, life size,emblematical of the principal battles (defeats included) fought in the campaigns of 1813, 1814, and 1815. A noble cluster of idealised military heroism they stand; some in the stubborn attitude of resistance, others in the eager impetuosity of attack, all wonderfully spirited. When you have warmed your imagination into a glow by the sight of these effigies of war, read and ponder over this inscription:—
“The Sovereign to his People, who at his summons magnanimously poured forth their Blood and Treasure for the Country. In Memory of the Fallen, in Gratitude to the Living, as an Incitement to every future Generation.”
One is tempted to add, “and of sacred promises still unfulfilled.” There is a beautiful garden and saloon called the Tivoli, close at hand, and from our heroics we soon slide into the peaceful enjoyment of a “baisser” and a cup of coffee; lounging luxuriantly among the flowers till the hour approaches for our departure.
We are a snug little party of a dozen, not including Herr Kupferkram and the Frau, who will insist upon waiting on us. There is the smug master-butcher from round the corner, who has a very becoming sense of his own position in society; two mild-spoken bookseller’s clerks, who scarcely find their voices till the evening is far advanced; my friend and fellow-tramp the glovemaker; a spruce little model of a man, with the crispest hair, and the fullest and best trimmed moustache in the world, and who is no doubt a great man somewhere; a tremendous fellow of a student, who talks of cannon-boots, rapiers, and Berliner Weiss Bier; and an individual whose only distinguishing feature is his nose, and that is an insult to polite society. The rest have no characteristics at all.
But ah! shall I forget thee, the beautiful Louise!—the affianced of Gottlob, the blonde, the coquettish, and the gay! Have you not asked me, in half confidence (Alcibiade being present), whether the German “geliebte,” is not changed in English into “süsses herz,” “sweet-heart,” as Gottlob had told you in his last letter from London? And you think the sentiment “so pretty and poetical!” And so it is; but we dunderheads in England have used the word so often that we have half forgotten its meaning.
Down we sit to supper; commencing with a delicate gravy soup and liver fritters; following up with breaded pork-chops and red saurkraut; continuing upon baked veal and prunes; not forgetting theentremetsof green pease and finely-sliced carrots stewed inbutter together; going on with a well-made sallad; and winding up with a syllabub and preserves. Hah! Bread unlimited, and beer without discretion. How can we sing after all that and yet we do, and talk unceasingly. The tables are cleared; and, accompanied by a beautiful tinkling of tiny bell-shaped glasses, the china punch-bowl, odorous with its steaming orange fluid, is placed at the head of the table. How the meek bookseller’s clerks shine out! They are all voice now. And we drink a “Lebe hoch!” to Gottlob far away; and to Gottlob’s mother, and to Gottlob’s father, chinking our glasses merrily every time, and draining them after each draught on our thumb nails, to show how faithfully we have honoured the toasts. We shout “Vivat h-o-o-o;” till the old German oven quakes again.
“Sing, fair Louise, I prithee sing!” Louise is troubled with a cold, of course; and, after due persuasion, lisps and murmurs some incoherent tremblings; exceedingly pretty, no doubt, if we could only make out what they meant. Then the student, who, although diminutive, has the voice of a giant, shouts a university song with the Latin chorus:—
“Edite, bebite, collegiales,Post multa sæcula procula nulla!”
“Eat ye then, drink ye then, social companions,Centuries hence and your cups are no more!”
The mildest of the clerks comes out well with Kotzebue’s philosophical song:—
“Es kann ja nicht immer so bleiben,Hier unter den wechselnden Mond;Es blüht eine Zeit und verwelket,Was mit uns die Erde bewhont.”
“It cannot remain thus for ever,Here under the changeable moon;For earthly things bloom but a season,And wither away all too soon.”
The spruce gentleman with the crisp hair throws back his head, and with closed eyes warbles melodiously:—
“Einsich bin ich nicht allein.”“Alone I’m not in solitude.”
“Einsich bin ich nicht allein.”
“Alone I’m not in solitude.”
The butcher has forgotten his dignity, and joins vigorously in every chorus. At this crisis Louise gracefully retires, leaving us to our replenished bowl.
“My friends!” shouts the student, mounting on a chair, “listen to me for a moment.” And then he plunges into an eloquent discourse upon the beauties of fraternity, and the union of nations, concluding his harangue by proposing a “Lebe hoch” to Alcibiade and myself. Alcibiade is decidedly the lion of the evening, and bears his honours gracefully, like a well-tamed creature. “Se sollen leben! Vivat ho—o!” it roars in our ears, and amid its echoes we duly acknowledge the compliment.
“That’s beautiful!” exclaims the student, whose name, by the bye, is Pimblebeck. “And now grant me one other favour. Thou Briton, and thou son of France, let us drink brotherhood together. What say ye? Let it be no longer ‘you’ and ‘yours’ between us, but ‘thou’ and ‘thine.’” Having reached the affectionate stage of exhilaration, we enter at once into the spirit of the proposal, and each in his turn, glass in hand, locking his arm in that of the enthusiastic Pimblebeck, drinks eternal friendship: to love truly; to defend valiantly; and to address each other by no other title than that of “thou” and “thee” for the rest of our lives.
I confess to a certain obliviousness here; a mental haze, amid which the mingled airs of “Rule Britannia” and the “Marsellaise” float indistinctly. But above all, and through all, with terrible distinctness, tones the voice of Pimblebeck; his boyish form dilated into the dimensions of a Goliath, as he pours forth the words of a Prussian revolutionary song, some few of which stand out in letters of fire in my memory still, thus:—
“Prinzen vom Land hinaus,Denn kommt der Bürger Schmaus;AristokratenWerden gebraten;Fürsten and Pfaffen die werden gehangt!”
“Drive out the prince and priest,Then comes the burger’s feast;Each aristocratShall broil in his fat,And nobles and bigoted bishops be hanged.”